


bomb in a birdcage

by andibeth82



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 02:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4162467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So what’s your story?” Bobbi asks when they’re roughly more than halfway to where Hill’s pointed out they should be tracking coordinates.</p><p>OR, the one where Clint is in the military.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bomb in a birdcage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> My original intention was to write you a Clint/Maria fic in the military AU setting, as that really spoke to me. However, I couldn't make it work in time, so you got Bobbi/Clint instead, with a shameless side of Clint/Nat-- not that I'm complaining! 
> 
> Title absolutely stolen from _A Fine Frenzy_. Thank you to **gecko** for beta and brainstorming and making this ten times better than it was when I initially sent it. And for listening to me whine about ideas that didn't end up working.  <3

There’s fire in his dreams.

The flames aren’t bright, and they’re not intoxicating, but they’re real and they’re warm and they lick at his feet and his hands when he’s not looking. By the time he _does_ look, all he can feel is the raging heat, engulfing him, silencing him, and he can’t scream and he can’t talk and he can’t breathe.

There’s fire in his dreams, and it’s fucking _terrifying_.

Clint bolts upright in bed, hearing the resounding crack of the weak bedsprings as he does so, wiping sweat from behind his neck and onto the covers of his thin blankets. A quick glance around his bunk shows him that apparently no one else has suffered from his nightmare; a rarity considering that everyone was a light sleeper. Bombs and emergencies aside, there were worse things to dream about, Clint knew: there was death and phantom limbs and the countless faces of the people whose breaths were their last on your own watch. He lowers himself back to the mattress, evening out his breaths, squeezing his eyes shut.

Clint snaps his eyes open again and sighs quietly, swinging his legs over the bed before sliding out noiselessly. Rummaging underneath his mattress, he grabs a lighter and a quarter-filled pack of cigarettes before exiting through the front of the tent, settling down in a vacant, dirt-covered spot a few yards away.

“Fancy seeing you out here,” says a voice next to him, and Clint makes a face as he lights up.

“What’s got you all bothered?”

Natasha shrugs, tucking a loose strand of red behind her ear. “Nothing. Can’t sleep either, though, so I’m taking advantage of the downtime.” She waves one hand towards another collection of tents. “Some new people came in this morning, and I heard through the grapevine that Hill’s doing re-assignments.”

“Huh,” Clint says, blowing smoke into the air. _Heard through the grapevine_ , he knows, is basically Natasha’s way of saying she’s found out information through channels that shouldn’t really be available to them. He gives a sideways glance. “You shipping out, Romanoff?”

Natasha moves her shoulders again. “Maybe,” she says evasively, avoiding his gaze. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“First time since Strike Team Delta got put on assignment,” Clint points out a little sharply and Natasha rolls her eyes, squaring her shoulders against nothing.

“We haven’t had a real op in two weeks, Barton. Not since --”

“Since the bombs stopped, yeah,” Clint confirms. “I know.” He discards another round of ash. “Plus the fact that we almost died last time, but whatever. Is it too much to hope that we get something that will give us an incentive to go back into the field again?”

Natasha gives him another look. “You’re _asking_ for someone to come attack us.”

“Pretty much.”

Natasha shakes her head. “You really do have a death wish.”

 _I don’t have a death wish_ , he wants to defend, but his words get lost in the very real knowledge that the statement isn’t entirely true. Besides, it’s not that he _wants_ to die, which could have been accomplished ten times over if he’d preferred at this point. He’s mostly just tired of feeling useless while everyone else in his troop got to hop into their jeeps and shoot their guns and dirty their uniforms. Clint would figure she’s mad about his comment, but after another moment she passes him her flask and as the liquid burns down his throat, it makes him smile. Him and Natasha are a lot of things, but most of all, they’re partners. And nearly getting killed on more than one occasion has only cemented their trust in each other, not to mention their ability to understand the meaning behind each other’s silences as though they were married.

Being partnered with Romanoff -- the “defector” from Russia’s troops --  hadn’t been his call, by any means. But an hour’s worth of arguments later, he’d come around enough to give the flame-haired, sharp tongued soldier a chance. And by the time they’d completed their first assignment together -- flying a plane into a war zone while nearly crashing thanks to a propeller being shot out -- he’d come around to trusting her judgement.

“Fire,” Natasha says, breaking the moment and the quiet. Clint raises his head to see an explosion in the distance, well out of range of their camp, light shooting into the ether and orange flames licking the sky. She matches his grim smile.

-

By the time he’s showered and re-dressed and eaten breakfast, it’s nearing seven and the sun is halfway up the sky, hovering over the hills of where they’ve stationed their camp. Clint shifts his weight across both feet as his supervisor shuffles papers in front of him; he’s been in his uniform for less than three hours and he’s already feeling the places where the heavy camouflage is starting to stick to his flesh, as if reminding him that, mission or not, it’s going to be a long day.

“Looks like you and Romanoff have been getting on well.”

“Yes,” Clint says, because hell if he’s ever going to resort to “yes, ma’am.” This wasn’t the 1940’s, this was freaking Afghanistan, and he knows if he ever talked to Maria Hill like that he’d be knocked off his ass faster than he could draw a gun.

“Good,” Hill’s brisk voice is non-committal. “Since you both haven’t managed to kill each other yet, I’ll keep sending you out together.” She looks up briefly, as if realizing she needs to see his reaction. “As long as you’re okay with that.”

Clint nods, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Got it.”

“Meanwhile,” and Hill’s voice takes on an almost distracted tone, “Romanoff said you were getting bored.”

“I’m not --” Clint closes his mouth as Hill looks up again, this time meeting his gaze and raising her eyebrow. _Goddamn you, Natasha._ He should’ve known better than to be candid about his feelings at three in the morning, since it’s not the first time words that he’d rather keep private have made their way to someone else’s ears. At least this time, it wasn’t anything that could incriminate him.

“You’re not what?”

“Nevermind,” Clint mutters, rolling his neck until he feels something crack. “What do you have for me?”

“Unfortunately, nothing that involves the use of Strike Team Delta’s skills,” and Hill sounds only mildly despondent about that fact. “Fortunately, however, we just got a new group in and we need someone to go investigate what we think might be enemy territory.”

“And no one from our troops can go?” Clint asks. Hill ignores his question as she continues.

“They’ve set up close to our territory, so it could be dangerous, but I’d probably feel okay with someone experienced going along for the ride. And no, no one on our team can go. I don’t want to waste our resources on a smaller assignment, and it’s a good way to integrate new blood.”

“So basically, you want me to babysit,” Clint assesses a little sourly, reading between the lines of her response, and Hill sighs.

“Should I remind you the oath you took when you agreed to come over here with us?”

Clint grits his teeth. “Solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, and you know, all of the above,” he says, crossing his arms, suddenly wishing for a cold shower. The desert doesn't play around, it's fucking _hot_. “When do I leave?”

“Tomorrow,” Hill says with a hint of a smug smile. “Bright and early, so you don't waste too much of the day if it's a bust. Like I said, the mission should be simple. Intel on possible enemy lines. Routine patrolling in an armored vehicle, track and report. And don’t --”

“Don’t Anderson Cooper the hell out of it, yeah,” Clint says, rubbing dirt from his knee. “I know, I know.”

-

“Thanks for ratting me out,” Clint grumbles later as he eats dinner, shoveling food into his mouth with arms sore from an intense training regimen he’d attended with some of the newer soldiers. Natasha smiles at him from across the long table.

“You _should_ thank me. You were practically jumping out of your skin the other night because you needed something to do.” She pauses. “Besides, it’ll be good for you to do something...mundane for a bit.”

“Always looking out for my best interests,” he says sarcastically, before grabbing another piece of bread. “Any news on your next assignment?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet. But we’ll see. I wouldn’t mind sitting around for awhile, if it came to that. Maybe doing some training. Or going out with one of the other squadrons.”

Clint presses his fingers together. It never ceased to amaze him how well he could know Natasha, and how she could continue to surprise him at the same time. Clint would think that the last thing Natasha would want to do is sit around; then again he knows that biding your time and being patient got you further in this business than constantly throwing yourself into missions. At least, under Hill’s command it did.

“Hey, Barton,” and when he looks up again Natasha’s giving him a look, “don’t get killed on this thing, okay? I’d kind of like you back in one piece.”

-

Hill’s instructions tell him to be at the first jeep in the convoy by six and Clint’s there by five-thirty, because somewhere between joining the army and meeting Natasha, he’s actually become punctual. He passes the time by reading from the small book he keeps in his pack; he can’t count the number of times he’s read Hemingway from back to front but he's found that grounding himself in something familiar has helped him in the long run, especially in cases where he needs to keep his mind active.

Clint turns a page, angling himself slightly to stay out of the sun’s growing death grip until a shadow falls across printed words. He looks up to meet the eyes of a blonde with a hard face and thin, slender lips and the more Clint stares at her, the more he’s reminded of the first time he met Natasha, in that he can’t figure out if he wants to get to know her or if he should be afraid of her.

“Bobbi Morse,” says the woman while holding out her hand, and Clint blinks once, shaking it back as he tucks his book under his arm.

“Barton, Clint,” he trades, looking her up and down as Bobbi’s upper lip twitches slightly.

“Do you have a problem?” She asks, placing her hands on his hips, and Clint realizes too late he’s let his eyes travel a little too long over her body.

“No,” he responds lamely when she arches a brow. “I just…no,” he finishes helplessly, feeling the stagnant desert air take up residence in his lungs. “I mean, it’s good to meet you.”

Bobbi stares at him in a way that makes Clint wonder if she’s always so judgmental and hard-wired, or if Hill or someone else had given her the lowdown on who she was working with. He figures at this point, it might just be all of the above. “You, too.”

He throws his pack into the back of the jeep and vaults himself into the passenger seat, mentally kicking himself for making such a grand first impression. Girl’s probably been in the army for less than 24 hours and he’s already managed to perpetuate the stereotype that men can’t keep their hands to themselves.

“For the record,” Bobbi says casually as she climbs in next to him, “I 've been down that road, and I didn’t think you were hitting on me before.” Clint feels a sense of relief at her words and attempts to sidestep the conversation entirely, gesturing towards the steering wheel.

“Hill told you that you’d be driving?”

“Yes,” Bobbi says curtly, situating herself and turning on the engine. “I’ve driven a car before, you know.”

“Sure you have,” Clint says, leaning back and slipping on his sunglasses, clasping his hands behind his hand. “But an armed jeep is a different thing entirely.”

Bobbi rolls her eyes as she backs up slightly, before jerking the wheel to the left. “I’ve driven army jeeps before, too.”

That gets Clint’s attention, and he rolls his head to the side as they leave their camp behind. “Where?”

Bobbi shrugs, as if the information is something she drops every day. “I grew up in a military family and we moved around a lot. Lived at different bases, and when I got older, my dad taught me how to drive using one of his vehicles.” She stops suddenly, as if she’s realizing she’s said more than she feels comfortable with, like her mouth has run away with her -- a subtle look Clint recognizes from the first time that Natasha started to open up. “Anyway,” she says after clearing her throat a little, “growing up the way I did was what made me want to join the army in the first place.”

“Huh,” Clint says in response, because he hadn’t expected to get such an open answer in the first ten minutes of their day together. He shifts again so that he’s facing the windshield.

“So what’s your story?” Bobbi asks when they’re roughly more than halfway to where Hill’s pointed out they should be tracking coordinates. Clint shakes his head.

“Don’t really got one.”

“Bullshit,” Bobbi says without skipping a beat. “Everyone’s got a story,” and Clint uses the pause in the conversation to snort. It was one thing to have _other_ people talk about their past, it was another thing altogether to have people ask _him_. There was a sense of security that came with protecting his secrets, one that he held onto fiercely, mostly so if he ever died in the field no one ever had to know enough to make up some sad story about his life. There were things that Natasha didn’t know, things that Hill didn’t know, hell, things that his own brother didn’t know. And they certainly weren’t things that Bobbi needed to know.

“Sweetheart, this isn’t that kind of story.”

Bobbi’s mouth opens again but before she can continue, the world lights up. Clint feels the blast before he sees it, before his hearing is assaulted, before the world literally feels like it’s been blown up in front of him. Instinctively, he ducks with his arms over his head as the jeep veers dangerously close to what Clint thinks might be a tipping point, his body slamming hard into the seat and as he bites down on a yell of pain, bright orange light mingled with deep, dark chaos fills his worldview.

By the time his mind registers what’s actually happened, he’s too much on the verge of passing out to care.

-

There’s fire in his dreams.

It surrounds him, barricades him, it holds him hostage as he tries to move and every time he does the flames crawl further up his body, searing off his skin. He screams, but there’s no sound, and it’s as if the flames are swallowing everything up, sucking away his air and his bones and his skin and he can’t _breathe_. Panic worms its way into his chest as he cracks open his eyes to a world that looks like it’s underwater and he gasps loudly, sucking in a breath that burns his lungs.

“Clint.”

The voice that feels like it’s coming from far away isn’t Natasha, nor is the face that swims into his vision. “Clint,” it says again, a little more urgently as a mess of scraggly yellow hair surrounding features peppered in dirt and crimson appears in front of him. “Barton, come on. Stay with me.”

He blinks slowly, trying to read the lips of the person standing over him -- Bobbi, he’s with Bobbi, he remembers as his mind starts to clear -- moving his jaw back and forth as he tries to make the ringing in his ears stop, as he tries to bring sound back into his brain.

"Hey." Bobbi’s face is all but brushing the side of his ear now, and he can feel something wet running down his scalp as she fumbles for his fingers. “If you can hear me, squeeze my hand, okay?”

He contracts his fingers at her words, tightening his palm around her own, and although he can’t quite hear Bobbi’s sigh he sees the relief reflected in her face, the muscles in her cheek loosening and her eyes clearing up as she breathes out.

“Lie still, okay? You can’t move.”

Clint doesn’t answer because he doesn’t need to, he’s slowly realizing what the wetness on his face and Bobbi’s broken tone and the ringing in his ears means, and he tries to concentrate on taking shallow breaths as the world comes back to him in waves, bringing with it images of the car and the blast.

 _Fire_. The thought is almost enough to make him panic all over again before he realizes there’s a gentle hand on the side of his face, anchoring him.

“You’re okay,” says Bobbi and it’s not a question, but Clint feels compelled to attempt to answer anyway.

“...the fuck?” His mouth feels like it’s been doused in gasoline, a horrid aftertaste only second to the fact that his entire throat is a desert, dry and uncomfortable, and he can’t seem to wet it no matter how hard he tries to painfully swallow. _Concussion at least,_ he thinks, figuring he’d care less about his response if they were in a less dire situation. Thankfully, Bobbi doesn’t even bat an eye at his words.

“Booby trap. Maybe. Could have also been a landmine, but what set it off in the first place was an animal running across the road ahead of us, so it seems like a weak attempt at an any kind of attack.”

“Jeep?”

Bobbi blinks. “Destroyed. We went over when the explosion hit, but I managed to pull you out,” and Clint notices the way she seems to be favoring her left shoulder. “Was worried the thing would catch fire if we stayed inside it. This…” She trails off, her eyes flitting left and then right. “This isn’t exactly ideal, either, being out in the open, but I really don’t want to move you.”

“Ugh,” and Clint swallows heavily to get rid of the taste in his throat. It doesn’t exactly work, and only reminds him of the fact he could throw up at any moment. “So Hill was right.”

“Maybe,” Bobbi says and it looks like it hurts her to shrug. “We don’t know if this was something recent or something that’s been sitting here for awhile, given the territory. We’ll have to send others in to go check.” She moves a strand of bloodied hair out of her eyes with her opposite arm and Clint catches the gash on her forehead for the first time.

“You wanna get that looked at?”

“By someone with head and neck trauma, not to mention possible other injuries that have the potential to cause paralysis?” Bobbi asks sarcastically. “I’m not going to be responsible for killing you, Barton. So until I pass out, I think I’ll live.” She moves closer and he notices that in addition to her shoulder (which he can tell is dislocated) she’s also having problems with her leg. Somehow, he knows if he says anything, she’ll just reject his concerns.

“How are your ears, by the way?”

It takes Clint a moment to understand the question. “Still fuzzy,” he admits, because he knows this much -- that Bobbi’s not going to read him the riot act on injuries relating to explosions, not to mention possible side effects. It’s standard army training, and he knows as well as she does the ins and outs of blasts, how they leave your hearing; he also knows what certain wounds inevitably mean in the long run. It’s not a conversation for the moment, and Bobbi nods.

“Like I said, don’t move. I’ll try to make you more comfortable, but the most important thing is to stay still until we can figure out how to get you medical attention.”

Clint grunts. “I’m guessing based on the fact you’re telling me this, that’s not going to happen,” he says as Bobbi bites down on her lip.

“Well, the good news is, we’re not so far out they can’t get us help easily. I found a working radio and they know about our situation. The bad news is, they need to make sure they’re not going to blow themselves up doing it, so it’s going to be a slow process to get to us. They should be here before the sun goes down, if anything.”

“Choppers?”

“Negative. Can’t fly in without confirming if there’s enemy fire on the other side,” Bobbi responds and Clint groans.

“Great.” He suddenly feels exhausted and isn’t sure if it’s from the heat or the injuries, but hey, maybe he _will_ finally die out here after all, though it’s a not exactly a way that he would prefer to be remembered. He only feels slightly bad that he’s probably going to break his promise to Natasha and leave the other half of Strike Team Delta hanging.

“Hey,” Bobbi says sharply and Clint blinks her back into focus, only a little annoyed. “I didn’t say you could pass out on me.”

“Sure you did,” Clint answers with as much sarcasm as he can muster. If it was Natasha on the other side of his vision, he figures she have probably yelled at him by now, but he doesn’t know Bobbi well enough to know how much tolerance she has for stubborn partners. She moves so that she’s closer to him, carefully keeping as much weight as possible off her leg.

“You really take me for granted, don’t you?”

“How can I take you for granted? We’ve known each other five minutes,” Clint mumbles. “I do know you’re a hard-ass, though.”

“That’s nice,” Bobbi responds flatly, but Clint can see a hint of a smile ghosting over her face. “What gave you that impression?”

Clint knows he shouldn’t move but does anyway, because he can’t help it, which causes Bobbi to glare at him sharply as he readjusts himself. “Taciturn. Military. The way you respond to things, follow orders.” He winces as a stabbing pain slices through his neck. “The way you didn’t bother asking me any questions when you met me, other than my life story, assuming that you were going to run the whole operation. You clearly like to be in charge. Am I wrong?”

Bobbi doesn’t answer, but Clint notices the way she moves her head, as if she’s inclined to agree with him. He’s gotten good at reading people, and he has no doubt Bobbi keeps her emotions close to the vest, but Clint can also tell she’s an open book in some other respects.

“You never told me about your life.”

“Yeah,” Clint says roughly. “Sorry. Kind of got blown up before I had the chance.”

Bobbi half-smiles, closing her eyes. “Since we both might end up in the hospital for a few weeks with nothing to do, you could just tell me now.”

And the thing is, as much as he hates talking about his own life, Clint finds himself seriously considering it, mostly because he knows the reason behind Bobbi’s question isn’t entirely out of interest. Or maybe it is, he thinks after another moment, hating the way his mind is taking too long to work. But, no, there’s a definite chance that her curiosity is rooted more in the interest of keeping him from passing out with a head injury and possible internal injuries that can’t be assessed yet.

“Why the hell are you so interested in my life story, Morse?”

“I --” Bobbi stops, as if Clint’s asking her a question that she doesn’t know how to answer. “We took an oath to die for each other, right? And we almost just did, and I’ve known you for less than an hour.” She moves her jaw back and forth, as if trying to make sure she can still work it correctly. “I guess normally I wouldn’t care, but in this case...I kind of just like to know who I’m fighting with.”

It feels like something Natasha would say -- something Natasha _has_ said -- and that fact makes Clint soften just enough to let down his guard. It’s not like he has anything to lose, anyway. Dying or living, he's stuck here and can either keep talking, keep beating around the bush, or pass out.

_Goddamn desert. Goddamn army._

“Grew up in Iowa,” he says, fighting off another wave of pain that slices through his bones. “Parents died when I was really young, so my brother and I ended up in foster care. Well, kind of. Got kicked around enough that we eventually just ended up homeless, and started a gig at the circus.”

“You --” Bobbi pauses, and her brow furrows. “You were in the circus?”

“Yep,” Clint says with a grunt of pain. “Stunts an' archery. It’s where I learned how to shoot, technically, before I got a gun in my hand. Funny, right?”

“If you weren’t on your deathbed, I’d consider you were lying,” Bobbi deadpans, but there’s a hint of amusement in her voice and it almost makes him smile.

“Anyway, so that ended, and my brother and I got into a bind. Money issues and all. We split up. I joined the army because I didn’t really have a place to go.” He grimaces. “So yeah, sorry. No moving around, no inspirations that made me want to save the world. Just fucked up and decided to do something else with the skills I had. Like I said, it's not really that kind of story.”

Bobbi’s quiet for a long time, so long that Clint thinks maybe she’s let herself drift off as well, despite the fact that he knows better. And then, “you’re a good soldier, Barton.”

The response is so out of the blue that Clint fights the urge to laugh, knowing the reaction won’t be welcomed by his insides. “Sure.”

“I mean it,” Bobbi says quickly, as if she’s trying to urgently express something that she needs to get out of her system. “I can tell.”

Her tone is soft, and Clint recognizes the words as genuine, and he decides for the moment not to contest it. He likes Bobbi, he thinks -- she’s not Natasha, but she’s a damn good soldier, and one that he thinks he might actually be okay with trusting from time to time, especially if she’s willing to pull his injured body out of a vehicle and care about him enough to try to keep him alive. He closes his eyes against his will and falls into darkness again; there’s fire and there’s pain and when he finds he can see again, a familiar head of dark hair is bending over him.

“Jesus Christ,” says Clint as Hill helps hoist him onto what he realizes is a makeshift stretcher, still trying to blink the nightmares away before he passes out again, “I never thought I’d be so glad to see you.”

-

Clint eventually finds out that among her many other qualities, Bobbi’s also pretty intuitive. In addition to a concussion, sprained neck, and a few surface abrasions, his injuries had been just enough that had he moved unnecessarily, he could have permanently damaged himself.

“I told you not to get yourself killed,” Natasha says conversationally as she leans over in the chair next to his bed in the medical ward, chin in her hands. Her thoughtful look is replaced with a grimance as he meets her eyes. “See what you almost did? Now we really can’t go back in the field.”

“Fuck off,” he mutters, hating that he’s unable to turn his head thanks to the neck brace he’s been given. Natasha sighs, putting her hand over his bandaged one.

“You have more scars.”

“Yeah,” Clint says, knowing what his skin looks like, what it will look like with the latest additions, still feeling the fire crawling over his body. He thinks he’ll be unlikely to forget it anytime soon, and wonders if one day he’ll be able to talk to anyone about what his nightmares mean. “Yeah, soon I’ll just be a patchwork of mutilations.” He pauses, forcing out a smile. “Girls will love me.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Don’t get too comfortable here, Barton. As soon as you’re better, I’m going to make sure we get ourselves back in action.”

“Always looking out for my best interests,” Clint says, moving his eyes to the ceiling, and Natasha smirks.

-

A week later, as he’s trying not to go stir-crazy, Bobbi shows up at his bedside, limping into the med ward on crutches. It’s the first time Clint’s seen her since the accident, and he notices that aside from her shoulder, which is hanging in a sling, and a face that looks well-worn, her other injuries don’t seem as bad as they had looked in the moment. The realization makes him feel relieved.

“Good thing you didn’t move,” she says in greeting as she lowers himself to the chair next to his bed, leaning her crutches against the bedside table. Clint makes a face that hurts.

“What took you so long?”

“They wouldn’t let me out til today,” Bobbi says. “And I’m still pretty banged up, but I’ll live. I think.” She offers a small smile. “I also think I win a record for being the person to get injured the earliest in my tenure with the army.”

“Nah,” Clint says gruffly, stifling a cough. “I think there’s a guy in my squadron who threw himself onto a grenade a few months ago. You’re golden.”

Bobbi laughs, shaking her head. “Well, in any other case, I think they would’ve sent me back,” she continues. “But Hill fought to keep me around, so I’ll just be off active duty for a little bit.”

Clint nods. He hasn’t bothered to really look into what his ultimate prognosis is -- he’ll make a quick enough recovery, he knows, at least quicker than he would have expected given the severity of his injuries -- but he doesn’t get to call the shots on when he actually goes back into the field. That’s Hill’s job, and he figures at this point, he’s looking at a lot of time in the med ward...not to mention some possible physical therapy.

“I, uh.” Bobbi’s voice suddenly turns a little sheepish as she reaches down, digging around in her messenger bag. “I also stopped by because I wanted to give this to you.”

Clint turns his head as much as he can, still being careful of his injuries, and feels his eyes widen in surprise as Bobbi places a paperback on his legs. It’s more than a little beat up, its pages torn and its cover split down the middle, but it’s still in one piece and Clint can’t help but smile.

“I found this in the jeep, when I pulled you out,” she says when he doesn’t say anything. “Most of your stuff was trashed thanks to the accident but I managed to snag it. I figured it was important to you.”

Clint nods, running his fingers over the well-worn spine. “Yeah,” he says finally, feeling his throat close up. There was absolutely no reason for Bobbi to bother doing something like this for him, he knows, and the resulting feeling is one that he’s not entirely used to.

“It is, isn’t it?”

Clint nods, suddenly realizing he hasn’t actually responded. “It is,” he repeats, looking up and meeting her eyes. “Thanks.”

Bobbi’s hand snakes into his own, and she squeezes it once with a smile.

“Anytime, Barton.”

**Author's Note:**

> The dreams about fire have a slight canon reference, in that they were inspired by this post with [these panels](http://isjustprogress.tumblr.com/post/121227092472/can-you-please-list-the-times-clint-has-been) about 616!Clint having a history with fire and being burned alive.


End file.
